Once upon a time I bought six bottles of 2003 St. Cosme Chateauneuf du Pape. They were fairly inexpensive, like $22 ea, and that plus the winery's good reputation among certain of my friends must have convinced me I'd like them enough at that price even though I basically sat out the 03 vintage in the Southern Rhone. At that time we had never owned St. Cosme before, possibly had never tried any--not sure now.

Anyway, I opened one of these maybe three years ago and found it staunchly tannic and unyielding, so didn't open another till this past week. Popped and poured, the impression on this latest bottle was at first winningly youthful, but the tannins seemed to double in intensity with every sip and before we could get halfway through the first glass, the wine had become undrinkably tannic. The alcohol was also pretty seriously on display, too. We put the remainders back in the bottle and opened something else. 36 hours later I tested what we'd set aside and found the same aggressive tannins chomping the heels of oxidative, pruney fruit. Horrible--and I have four more bottles? Ouch.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

Ouch. 2003 is rough in Rhone for my tastes, I have a few bottles of various CdP that I bought because they were cheap and now think they weren't cheap enough. To be fair to Chateau de St. Cosme, the estate's reputation is based on Gigondas (and to a lesser extent CdR), I think CdP is a recent addition (with St Cosme acting as a negociant, don't think they have CdP vines). I generally find their single vineyard Gigondas very well made if a little oaky for me. I'll occasionally buy the Cotes du Rhones (Les Deux Albion is mostly Grenache I think, the "basic" is all Syrah).

I have a few bottles in the cellar but no CdP. Bought what I do have based on a really good 2002 Cote Rotie I had 2-3 years ago. Looked at the cellar tracker notes for the 2003 CdP and they show some variance that could be bottle variance or style preference but tannins are noted a lot.

Dale Williams wrote:Ouch. 2003 is rough in Rhone for my tastes, I have a few bottles of various CdP that I bought because they were cheap and now think they weren't cheap enough. To be fair to Chateau de St. Cosme, the estate's reputation is based on Gigondas (and to a lesser extent CdR), I think CdP is a recent addition (with St Cosme acting as a negociant, don't think they have CdP vines). I generally find their single vineyard Gigondas very well made if a little oaky for me. I'll occasionally buy the Cotes du Rhones (Les Deux Albion is mostly Grenache I think, the "basic" is all Syrah).

Didn't realize that difference on the CdR's, so thank you for that. I have both in magnums from a later vintage and will keep that in mind when I choose one or the other--I know I've kind of liked the LVA but not so much the other.

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov